![\"Karl](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/8c50b3df29f0bcf7c5c79c2544a28eba75538e424ae1fbc71e23b5ac052c5337.png\")
Save<\/p>\nSave<\/p>\n
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n
Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n ABC radio\u2019s Ali Moore is trading the Drive shift for the Italian countryside, with her last show being May 29.<\/p>\n Her replacement will be Charlie Pickering, host of ABC TV\u2019s The Weekly and, since late 2024, the nationally syndicated radio comedy panel show Thank God It\u2019s Friday.<\/p>\n Moore and her husband, who has business interests in Germany, are in the process of buying a farmhouse in Umbria, the fulfilment of a dream that has been simmering for a decade.<\/p>\n \u201cI am going to split my time between Italy and Australia,\u201d Moore said. \u201cI want to learn Italian, I want to learn to cook, and I want a really different life to the one I\u2019ve had for the last 40 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Moore began her journalism career as a graduate cadet with the ABC in 1987, starting out on 3LO (as ABC Melbourne 774 was then known). She went on to work across radio and television, including as host of Lateline and Lateline Business, and as the ABC\u2019s Beijing-based China correspondent. She also had long stints with Nine and the BBC, based in Singapore.<\/p>\n Though she intends to keep working in some capacity, the move signals the end of a journey. The latest chapter began with her taking up the Drive chair at the end of 2023 when Rafael Epstein moved to Mornings.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been amazing, and I have loved it, I really do genuinely mean that,\u201d Moore said. \u201cBut a dozen broadcast roles and three employers is, I think, enough for one career, and it\u2019s time to do something else.\u201d<\/p>\n Moore revealed to ABC management in December that she was unlikely to see out the entire year, and on Friday she revealed to her audience that she was leaving, and that Pickering \u2013 a regular guest on the program ahead of his 5pm panel show \u2013 would be her replacement from June. He will have a job ahead of him, too, in rebuilding audience share from a low 2.5 per cent of listeners in the most recent survey.<\/p>\n How does Moore think her listeners will respond to Pickering?<\/p>\n \u201cI genuinely think he\u2019s great, and I think he\u2019ll be great for the program, he\u2019ll be great for the station.\u201d<\/p>\n Familiar though he is to ABC audiences \u2013 and especially to Drive listeners on a Friday \u2013 Pickering is a very different personality to Moore.<\/p>\n \u201cMy husband and I once spent a couple of hours walking around a market in Pakistan trying to buy me a sense of humour, because I largely don\u2019t have one,\u201d Moore concedes. \u201cI\u2019m very serious, and I\u2019ve come at this job from the background and the perspective of a news journalist, and maybe that\u2019s sometimes been to my detriment with the amount of stuff we have to cover.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd now management has gone from someone with no sense of humour to a comedian, who is also one of the brightest people I know. It will be really different, and it will be really good.\u201d<\/p>\n For Pickering, this is a gig he\u2019s been waiting his whole life to do.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the best shift on the best radio station in the best city in the world,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s how I feel about it.\u201d<\/p>\n He rattles off a long list of Drive presenters he has admired, including Moore, her predecessor Epstein and Virginia Trioli. But it\u2019s the memory of listening with his mother to Doug Aiton and Terry Lane after school pick-up that burns brightest.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s cold outside but it\u2019s cosy in the car, we\u2019re in the driveway at home, and my mum has tears rolling down her cheeks because of something we\u2019re listening to and laughing at, and we aren\u2019t getting out of the car because we want to hear the end of this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Pickering plans to keep doing his TV shows, The Weekly, which doesn\u2019t return until early next year, and The Yearly, and has no intention of giving up TGIF either, which he concedes may come as news to station management.<\/p>\n \u201cI may be speaking out of school here, but as far as I\u2019m concerned I will hit the 5 o\u2019clock news and sprint down to the studio where there\u2019ll be an audience waiting, because there have been many times when that one hour has been the absolute highlight of my week.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s had plenty of experience in radio, dating back to the early 2000s on Triple J and most recently as host of the Breakfast show on Fridays (when Sammy J was in the chair) in 2023. But he knows he\u2019ll have to step it up if he\u2019s to match the levels of those who have so inspired him.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a once-in-a-lifetime job,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot to learn, but I really look forward to the challenge of trying to make a radio show that keeps you listening in the driveway after you get home.\u201d<\/p>\n Karl Quinn talks movies on the Drive show every Friday.<\/p>\n Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our Screening Room newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"C\u2019mon,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/815448ee486f5f3de91a4b84433c47fe0b9dcd81.jpeg\")
C\u2019mon, hand it over: Ali Moore is vacating the Drive seat, with Charlie Pickering settling in from the start of June. Justin McManus<\/p>\n![\"Ali](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/cbaea8ca890746ff3dd870ba2752ffebe3903b06.jpeg\")
Ali Moore in the ABC studio in 2008. She began her journalism career on 3LO in 1987.Justin McManus<\/p>\n![\"Pickering](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5c1dbc9e4d32ed214c20a7056ef98b9b0ebdaa1a.jpeg\")
Pickering intends to keep doing The Weekly, The Yearly and TGIF as well as Drive \u2026 if management will let him.Eddie Jim<\/p>\n